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CALP-Funded Family Literacy Programs

CALP-Funded Family Literacy Programs



In Alberta, family literacy programs funded through Alberta Advanced Education’s Community Adult Learning Program (CALP) intentionally focus on supporting literacy and foundational skills development for adult learners. Family literacy programs in the CALP context are based on the understanding that focussing on the adult learners’ skill development promotes the value and benefits of increased literacy within the whole family. Adult learners in family literacy programs also gain skills and strategies to create a literacy-rich environment in their homes.

Literacy and foundational skills are those fundamental, everyday skills that we use in our everyday life. We need them to pursue further learning, have satisfying and meaningful employment, support our family’s health and on-going learning, be involved in the community and many other personal pursuits. Advanced Education breaks these literacy and foundational learning (LFL) areas down into 5 categories for CALP programming:

  • Adult literacy
  • Numeracy
  • English Language
  • Basic Digital Skills
  • Skills for Learning

When developing or providing any programs or services for learners, it is important to understand who the learners are, including their preferences for learning, and what their literacy and foundational learning needs are. Once you know these two things, it makes it easier to intentionally plan family literacy programs that help adult learners acquire specific foundational skills that they need in their everyday life.

In the CALP world, identifying which specific foundational skills you want the learning to focus on in your program is called your “primary intended learning objective” (or PILO). How you deliver the training (in this case, through family literacy programs) is called the “mode of delivery”. 

 Modes of Delivery:

Every learner has preferences in how they learn.  Some like to learn in a one-on-one setting, others prefer formal or informal group settings.  In the CALP system, organizations are encouraged to deliver programming in the way that learners find most beneficial.  These ways of learning, could be described as how learners choose to get to their learning goal destination (PILO). For example, if you were travelling from London to Paris you would have the option to travel by boat, train (underwater!), or plane. When helping your learners reach the PILO, your CALP has a choice of “travelling methods” to get them there: tutoring, courses, learning activities or family literacy programs. Just like some people are afraid of flying so would choose a train to travel to Paris, learners all have preferences of what “works” best for them in their learning journey.

The CALP Grant Overview provides a great visual of how family literacy programming is one of the ways you can provide Literacy and Foundational Learning within the CALP Policy Manual as a mode of delivery.

Deciding to offer a learning opportunity using family literacy programs as the mode of delivery may be beneficial when a CALP organization:

  1. Wants to offer a creative and non-threatening approach to building adult literacy and foundational skills and;
  2. Recognizes that some adult learners are more likely to attend programming for the sake of their children.
    (CALP Policy Manual, p.16)

Here are some things you may need to keep in mind when choosing which mode of delivery would work best for your learners in reaching the PILO: 

  • Do your learners have childcare barriers? Could these barriers be reduced by providing childcare in an adult-only family literacy program or by providing a program where children attend with an adult family member?
  • Do you have a large number of learners in a specific LFL learning category that would be a great “fit” for family literacy programming?
  • Do you have learners who would feel more comfortable in an informal, “fun” family literacy program atmosphere or be more comfortable attending with another family member (for example, their child)?

It’s all about creating a safe, welcoming, and accessible way that “fit” your learners best in order to help them reach the Primary Intended Learning Objective of the program.

Primary Intended Learning Objective (PILO):

When choosing which LFL category to place a learning opportunity in, you need to figure out which one of the LFL categories with its corresponding PILO is the “learning destination” that aligns with your learners’ needs. You may “stop” or take different "routes" through other LFL categories on the way (e.g. Touching on adult literacy when working towards improving basic digital skills), but what is documented in your CALP Application is what you have chosen as the “learning destination” – the category with the PILO that you are intentionally heading and planning towards. Here is a video, LFL Provincial Park, that provides a visual explanation of how different modes of delivery can be used to reach specific learning goals in foundational literacy and foundational learning.